Hi all,
We packed the room Wednesday, great job turning out folks to contact their legislators and the ways & means full committee chairs and w&m education sub-committee chairs. I went down to Salem yesterday and delivered all the completed cards to each of the offices and spoke to staff about the important place of Oregon public higher education in building and sustaining a well-informed populace and qualified workforce.
As you may have heard, the funding bill for the HECC (HB 5024), which includes the PUSF that provides most the of the state funding to the universities, was pulled at the last minute to the surprise of the ed sub chairs at 8 AM yesterday morning. The PUSF had been at $837M for the vote.
This is actually good news, as the talk is that pressure has been exerted by the Governor on house legislators to vote "no" on the bill as it does not meet her stated "investment" budget goal which was $120M over last biennium ($857M PUSF). So we have at least three more days to contact legislators, please engage your members again to do so:
Ways & Means Education Subcommittee Chairs:
Senator Lew Frederick (503) 986-1722
Representative Susan McLain (503) 986-1429
Full Way & Means Chairs:
Representative Dan Rayfield (503) 986-1416
Senator Betsy Johnson (503) 986-1716
Senator Elizabeth Steiner Hayward (503) 986-1717
This link contacts all five of those legislators: https://secure.everyaction.com/fZ02UqL8GkGZ3pAr9EE90w2
I've also attached a flyer Joe Cartino provided to engage students today and next week to take action to contact their legislators and demand support for higher ed.
In solidarity,
Rob Fullmer
SEIU Local 503